Good Morning Everyone,
My Little Honey has just completed a short novel entitled "The Extraordinary Magic of Everyday Life" In it she has three aged women, one of whom is a bag lady, and with the magic of a teddy bear and everyday life, itself, they come of age. This process of coming of age is interesting. It is in the process of rising to the occasions required by activities of the ordinary with friends and family that we take our place in the world.
Yesterday we went to see "The Bucket List" and while the activities on that list were wonderful "things to do" the really important stuff was relational. We often forget that. At least I do. Yet, as I am aging, like my wife's characters in her book, I trust I am coming of age myself.
We cannot short circuit the process and there are no real short cuts. Life is to be lived and the less we live in the creation of our minds, the more we live in the everyday moments, the more authentic our lives. Zen is all about that.
This morning I will drive down to El Paso to visit my friends at the El Paso Sitting Group. Then I teach a class at the Jewish Academy. Life is good.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
http://www.clearmindzen.org/
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Organ Mountain Zen
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Cooking Your Life
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning is again a cold one. The temps are in the low twenties and I am scheduled to go sit in front of the environmental center. Sitting Zazen in the cold is no fun. I've noticed that my nose runs, eyes water, and internal things begin to shake. This can't be good.
I am cancelling my morning outdoor sits until the morning temps are above 35.
I missed the Wednesday Peace Vigil due to Rev. Kokyo's surgery. It was supposed to be in the early morning, but it was moved to the afternoon. So it goes. Life is full of little twists and turns and the more quickly we get to a point where we relax into them the better. Just like on a motorcycle, you don't resist leaning into the curve.
Learning to let go is really important. Last night we attended Chef Jacob's opening night at Meson de Mesilla. It was an unexpectedly large crowd, every table full, the lounge crowded, and a very green kitchen staff. I stepped back to the kitchen a few times. The wait staff were really stressed. The cooks were very stressed. I invited them to breath free and easy. We smiled together. And while this didn't speed things up, it may have helped them settle their internal engines just a little.
As with anything intense, it is very important to learn to relax within the intensity. While running, for example, a runner can place their attention on their calf muscles and relax them with each step. The same for our arms, chests, and shoulders. The key is learning to notice the muscle groups and understand that we have real control over them when we decide we can take it.
An easy breath with a smile and pleasant thought in the middle of yuk is always a welcome, if brief, relief.
The evening at Meson was extraordinarily delicious. The music was wonderful. The atmosphere elegant. If any of you ever get to Las Cruces, please visit.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Friday, January 18, 2008
The Small Things
Good Morning Everyone,
Life is good. This morning's power outage made an impression on me. When we are at our Refuge in the mountains we have no power outages, period (due to our own, reliable, solar power system, and there is always heat through the woodburning cookstove or propane furnace. As we rose early this morning and wanted coffee, though, the percolator refused to work without electric. Imagine that. In the mountains, we would simply get the cookstove going and shortly we would have our coffee and tea.
Lessons: Always have matches available, candles, and flashlights with batteries. Have a small propane campstove available to heat water for coffee and tea. And always have a battery operated radio available to find out what's going on.
My matches were not in my drawer. My flashlight was emptied of batteries in an attempt a few weeks ago to get a tape recorder to work, and we left our propane campstove in the mountains.
Fortunately, my memory is sometimes in good repair, especially in the morning so I was able to find, in the dark, a book of matches, a small flashlight and my Itty-Bitty Booklight (which actually had batteries in it!).
So, live in the moment, live by your wits, and be grateful for the small things in life.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Taking a short break
Hello All,
Just a quick note to let you know I'm taking a short break from writing. My Little Honey had surgery on her nose yesterday to remove a malignant basal cell carcinoma, my son in Florida is having a rather sticky heart procedure Friday, and I am just plan tired.
Please keep Judy and Jason in your prayers. Also, my former Disciple Rev. Sam Kokyo is having a hip replaced tomorrow and we will attend his partner Mary Ellen in the surgery waiting room. Keep him in your thoughts as well.
Lastly, thank you Deana Kessin, for keeping me company while Judy was being treated in the hospital outpatient surgery center.
Meditation at the synagogue went well and I have double the number of students I expected to have in my spirituality class at the Academy of Jewish Learning. I guess there is a demand for a JuBu Zen priest :)
Anyway,
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Monday, January 14, 2008
Work Meditation
Good Morning Everyone,
In the West we often think of the sacred as something special residing in a special place or created through a special activity. In fact, we often think of the universe as divided and separated, categorized, tagged and bagged: me ~ not me.
In Zen, East or West, we strive to see through this delusion, this veil of ignorance, and see that everything is one. In such a world, there is no sacred, no profane, nothing special, there is just the world we experience as we experience it. We could say this is mundane. Hardly. It is, in fact, extraordinary.
The universe is all us, everything. Our breath and our very existence both depends on it and it depends on us. Nothing means anything without our making it mean something. We are partners with the Infinite.
In Zen, we approach all activity in this way: meditation, walking, eating. Today I will suggest that even our work is such an activity. We call work meditation, samu. It is typically done as a meditative practice in monasteries, but also at Zen Centers during retreats. The reason I indicated both is that during retreats at Zen Centers, samu is taught as a contemplative practice, whereas in a monastic context, all work activity is samu, all work activity then is contemplative.
In our "secular" lives, I suggest we live as if we are monastics, in the sense that we make all life activity a source of contemplation.
When we approach work as a spiritual activity what do we mean? First, I think, we approach it openly. Work is not opposed to us. It is not an exchange value, it is in itself.
Second, we appreciate all of the activity. We reside in the activity as if there were no other activity to be done in that moment because, in truth, there is nothing other than what we are doing just now. Multitasking is at best a fiction, at worst, a house dividing itself.
As we approach our work with an open heart and willingness to be completely present during it something really wonderful happens. It becomes our own regardless of who we are doing it for or what we might receive in return. This is the value of living in the moment. There are no degrees of separation.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Lets Eat
Good Morning Everyone,
Seated meditation and walking meditation are but two of our meditative forms. There is also "oryoki" or the practices involved in eating meditation. Formal practice requires two things for the Zen Buddhist, a robe and a set of bowls. These point to our basic necessities of food and shelter. The robe shelters us against the elements and food offers us sustenance for our journey.
Just as there is a prayer when opening our robe, so too there are prayers associated with eating. In Zen, all activity is activity of a buddha. We should therefore treat all activity with a high degree of reverence and awareness.
Oryoki is usually practiced at the noon meal in Temples. The noon meal is often the last meal of the day and is the most substantive. An oryoki bowl set contains three bowls, a table cloth, a cloth bib, a cloth napkin, and a utensil pouch with contains chop sticks, a spoon, and a cleaning tool.
We open the bowls together in the meditation hall in precise movements. The bowls are set out, prayers are chanted, for each serving of three courses. No eating occurs until all three servings are served, all the prayers are chanted, a portion is offered to the hungry ghosts, and permission is given to eat. Once the meal is completed, we each wait patiently for all to finish. We then clean the bowls with hot water, wipe them out, stack them back in order, and wrap them in the intricate lotus bud flower pattern each of us is taught.
All of this is done while sitting in lotus or half lotus at our cushions.
Eating meditation is a wonderful practice. It teaches us patience, gratitude, and thoughtfulness. Much of our practice involves dealing with feelings and thoughts as they arise during the prayers and long periods of serving the three courses. We eat slowly, very slowly, being mindful of our food, how it came to us, the many lives and many hands involved in its preparation,
In the United States we are particularly calloused, I think, to these things. Our food is often prepared by others hidden from our view. We eat quickly. We often do not give a thought to the lives offered as food for us. We just consume.
Eating meditation is all about addressing this distance from nature. It brings us face to face at each meal with our true interconnectedness.
These benefits are true even of informal eating practice. We can recite simplified versions of the meal chants, consider the food we are eating, its sources, and those who prepared it for us. We can wash our dishes with clear mind and open heart, being present in the practice.
True Zen Buddhists are in constant practice.
Be well.
.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Saturday, January 12, 2008
Taking Aim
Good Morning Everyone,
Everything has its use, its place in the universe, and for the sake of this, everything is necessary. According to Aristotle, there were four causes: material, efficient, formal, and final. In modern times we use only one type of cause in our thinking, formal cause. Yet each type of cause reveals a point of view and each point of view has validity.
Material cause suggests something is what it is due to the material it is made of. We are holy beings because God breathed his spirit into us. We are human beings because we live in social groups and we get our life from the group. We are human beings because we have evolved into human beings as a result of many physical, psychological, and spiritual causes. Lastly, we are human beings for the sake of our partnership with the Absolute in order to perfect the universe.
Each "cause" has its place and offers us a view of our reason for being. One view looks at the stuff we are made of, another the conditions regarding that stuff, another the plan or order of the making itself, and still another, the purpose of the stuff itself. Only in the last case, the final or teleological case, do we find a rich, imaginative and deeply spiritual understanding of causation.
I am for the sake of something, not just because of something. In such a case, our aim in life and the path we follow become incredibly important.
When we practice Zen, we practice for the sake of something. We practice with what Master Dogen refers to as a "Way seeking mind" or the "thought of enlightenment". Notice, these are not causes in the modern sense. But rather, they are purpose driven.
As Zen Buddhists we are taught that everything is itself perfection already: we are vaguely aware that this perfection is covered by closed eyes. Our practice, encouraged by the thought and vague awareness, is to open our eyes and see clearly. So, for the sake of seeing clearly what is already present, we practice Zen.
Christians and Jews know this, as well. In the Jewish sense, we practice tikkun 'olam, a practice of assisting God in His work, righting wrongs, healing people, providing for the poor. In the Christian world, the same, we practice charity and love for all beings. Prayerful practices are meant to bring us closer to the Absolute in and out of the sanctuary.
In the theistic religions, from a non-mystical perspective, we behave because of our love of God, the Law of God, and an inevitable joining with God.
In Zen Buddhism, we practice for the sake of allowing the perfection that already is to emerge.
At first sight these appear different and even occasionally opposed to each other, but such is only a matter of perspective. Shift the ground you sit on and a whole new perspective emerges.
May you practice to be the perfection you already are in a world in dire need of your assistance.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
http://www.clearmindzen.org/
Everything has its use, its place in the universe, and for the sake of this, everything is necessary. According to Aristotle, there were four causes: material, efficient, formal, and final. In modern times we use only one type of cause in our thinking, formal cause. Yet each type of cause reveals a point of view and each point of view has validity.
Material cause suggests something is what it is due to the material it is made of. We are holy beings because God breathed his spirit into us. We are human beings because we live in social groups and we get our life from the group. We are human beings because we have evolved into human beings as a result of many physical, psychological, and spiritual causes. Lastly, we are human beings for the sake of our partnership with the Absolute in order to perfect the universe.
Each "cause" has its place and offers us a view of our reason for being. One view looks at the stuff we are made of, another the conditions regarding that stuff, another the plan or order of the making itself, and still another, the purpose of the stuff itself. Only in the last case, the final or teleological case, do we find a rich, imaginative and deeply spiritual understanding of causation.
I am for the sake of something, not just because of something. In such a case, our aim in life and the path we follow become incredibly important.
When we practice Zen, we practice for the sake of something. We practice with what Master Dogen refers to as a "Way seeking mind" or the "thought of enlightenment". Notice, these are not causes in the modern sense. But rather, they are purpose driven.
As Zen Buddhists we are taught that everything is itself perfection already: we are vaguely aware that this perfection is covered by closed eyes. Our practice, encouraged by the thought and vague awareness, is to open our eyes and see clearly. So, for the sake of seeing clearly what is already present, we practice Zen.
Christians and Jews know this, as well. In the Jewish sense, we practice tikkun 'olam, a practice of assisting God in His work, righting wrongs, healing people, providing for the poor. In the Christian world, the same, we practice charity and love for all beings. Prayerful practices are meant to bring us closer to the Absolute in and out of the sanctuary.
In the theistic religions, from a non-mystical perspective, we behave because of our love of God, the Law of God, and an inevitable joining with God.
In Zen Buddhism, we practice for the sake of allowing the perfection that already is to emerge.
At first sight these appear different and even occasionally opposed to each other, but such is only a matter of perspective. Shift the ground you sit on and a whole new perspective emerges.
May you practice to be the perfection you already are in a world in dire need of your assistance.
Be well.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
http://www.clearmindzen.org/
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